Submerged
by hmrg
Summary: It has forgotten what it was.


_[The gorgeously terrifying cover image artwork on this story was done by the talented Buteman. Check them out: buteman dot deviantart dot com/art/Malachite-528109730]_

It has forgotten what it was.

Not that that matters down here; what good is a name when there's nothing around to use it? This one doesn't remember where it comes from. It doesn't remember the ones that drove it down- down, to this- so long ago. It doesn't remember the overlord that once sat between its shoulder blades, a lazurite hub of language and culture and denied origins. It doesn't remember the slow deterioration of that mineral oppressor, or its final devolution into dozens of autonomous, squabbling routines. Now, even those have fallen silent.

Not much comes down from the jasper cortex anymore. Low-level impulses flicker in; the motor projections compelling its limbs work in the background. The rest is mostly inert, worn smooth by a black ocean. All that's left now is pure monster.

It glides onward, lacking thought, oblivious to the weight of billions of gallons of cold seawater. It's dying, of course, but slowly. It wouldn't care much about that, even if it knew.

There is nothing to do but wander. Red and brown kelp have tangled in the thick of its silvery mane- souvenirs from its excursions out of the bathypelagic depths. Like all living things, it has a purpose; or had, once. It was a weapon, an escort. It forgets, sometimes, what its mission was. But it remembers- here, skirting the sunlight zone- it remembers when it sees it.

It sees him now, bobbing on the surface a hundred fathoms above, grouped like a school of fish with shapes similar to his own. He looks much like the others, but it has always been able to tell the difference. Why fixate on him, and not the others? It doesn't care. Monsters never question motives; they only act on them.

He doesn't seem to know that it is here, watching.

It feels, somehow, that this place is dangerous, although it doesn't know how. Embedded habit- or instinct- has kept it from the surface. Yet here he is. Its six enormous arms beat like oars, pulling it upward through the brine. With less comprehension than a cat snatching its plaything, the monster moves to take its quarry to the safety of the deep.

It's easier when he stops struggling. Eventually, he allows it to tow him away from the bright lights of the shallows, back toward the place it belongs. He makes sounds, strange and familiar; the monster listens at first, but they make its head hurt. Sedately, the monster draws him through silent nightscapes.

Rosy light dawns around his middle-faint at first, but growing. Soon the light engulfs his form, forcing away the massive hands that have closed around him. He lets out a sharp gasp. Sputters. The light is radiant- _Round_ , a gem-brain murmurs, although it doesn't know what that means.

The light glares out from the darkness- too intense, too steady, far brighter than the bioluminescent particles that usually light the way- and turns the rest of the world stark black. The monster usually avoids such light. But this is what he needs. This is safety for him, part of him, even though to the monster, it represents something completely-  
From the jasper cortex, a shiver of remembrance.

It transmits a signal-an incoherent remnant: _Rosebubble_. A foreign sense of dread floods its underutilized axons.

"LapisJasperitsmeCanyouhearme?"

The monster shoots back into the darkness, turbid water billowing behind it. It retreats a good fifty feet before a dim realization sinks in.

The deadened gems know those sounds. It doesn't understand them, but it's heard something like them before. The monster feels an unaccustomed twitch; it turns and faces from where it fled. Distance has smeared the light into a diffuse, dull pink glow.

He floats in the light, waiting. Wary, but interested, the monster comes to him.

"Heylook."

The monster flinches, but holds its ground. Its four pupils narrow in the bright field as they try to resolve the figure therein.

"Ididn'tmeantostartleyou, butI'vebeenlookingforyou."

The words come again, distorted and devoid of meaning, through the liquid medium: "Doyouunderstandme?" It doesn't know that he is waiting for recognition. It doesn't know much of anything. Inquisitive, it raises a claw to tap the luminous orb. The one inside it cries out in surprise.

He struggles upright, making gestures too subtle for it to process. "Isthatayes? Okay, let'strysomethingBlinkifyoucanunderstandme." The two pairs of green eyes scan the spherical light, glazed and unblinking, as they have been since they fused. Not that it remembers.

"Areyouthere? Lapis? Jasper?"  
It remains catatonic before the barrage of sounds.  
"Okay, justlisten, then."  
As it grows accustomed to the noises, neurons lit with panic once again grow dark.

"...Beenfused-so-long...You know...? Almosttwentyyears."  
Only fragments of word strings register.  
"Colddownhere- canyoufeel…?  
"...Yourgems… ThinkIcanhealyou.  
"...Progresswiththeothers- havetounfuse-"

These words find the monster but pass through it, water through a gill. Its lower limbs paddle idly.  
"-Needtocomeonland... We-need- backtothesurface."

He slows his onslaught, as if clarity of speech would grant meaning to the syntax. "Do-you-know-what-I'm-saying? I-can-help-you. Both-of-you. But-you-need-to-listen."  
He places a hand against the bubble; it mimics the motion, too clumsily, jostling the one inside.

He continues in vain, his voice rising. "ListenListenComewithme."  
 _Sorry_ , the lapis tells itself- but it doesn't know the feeling.  
"Comebackwithme- Pleaseyou'vegottolisten-  
"Please- youguys- pleasePlease"

The figure inside the light drops to his hands and knees, making himself small. His words drop off into a succession of halting sobs. The monster pulls back its lips into a terrible grimace; a sudden wave of fatigue flickers from gem to gem. With a growing languor, it feels the pull of darker waters, and turns from him.

"Wait," he chokes out. "WAIT"

It descends, ignoring the pleas he throws after it, leaving him to float alone in the disphotic depths; soon, his impassioned cries fade behind the thrum of the ocean currents.

In minutes, it has forgotten the interaction.

It has forgotten an existence beyond this aquatic midnight.

It has forgotten what it was.


End file.
